Kings Theatre, Edinburgh
August 20, 2022
★★★★
An Untitled Love, Kyle Abraham’s latest work for his company A.I.M, invites the audience into the most laid-back of house parties. Friends come and go, stopping to talk, joshing, joking, even sometimes dancing. To one side at the front sits a sofa and pot plant, around which they munch snacks, chat or just chill.
The mood is emphasised by the music, a selection of bass-heavy soul by R&B great, D’Angelo. An Untitled Love is a slow burner and does take a while to get going, though. For the first half-hour or so, the dance is restricted to just little vignettes, although it’s amazing how gently and easily they flow out of the various meetings and comings and goings. The exception is an arresting slow-motion sequence to pacy music where time seems to slow.
in An Untitled Love by Kyle Abraham
Photo Christopher Duggan
Dancers flirt, and socialize easily. Dance and the conversations become as one. A juicy arabesque or a short sequence really does feel like an extension of what is being said. It’s also warm and cosy with hints of romance as the cast make their moves, pair off and disappear for a while.
When the longer sequences come, we see just how varied and beautifully fluid Abraham’s vocabulary is. Ballet moments sit alongside effortless jazz with, every now and then, a dash of hip hop thrown in for good measure.
The dance and the dancing are gorgeous. An Untitled Love is loaded with soft graceful turns, pliant bodies and long lines. In duets, the performers frequently seem to melt into one another. It will leave you purring with pleasure.
Jae Nael is the main comic figure, sauntering through the scene eating or dropping into splits as if he had drunk too much. We do hear some speech too, often with gentle humour about familiar topics. Catherine Kirk gives into Martel Ruffin’s advances, after which we hear a funny offstage monologue as she gets ready for a date with him, wondering what to wear, and even whether she should back out, torn between “playing with boys” and remaining single for life. A minor narrative oddity sees them back at the party after he arrives.
The mood changes for a moment when a voiceover suddenly intrudes. As the cast, almost all black, lie on the floor, “We’re the ones getting killed,” we hear. “Why do we keep loving this country? This country does not love us back.”
The quiet yet powerful duet to D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’ for Kirk and Martell Ruffin that follows is the highlight of the show. Separated by a strip of light across the front of the stage, the couple support in other in turns. The connection is unstable, though, she receding into the shadows time and again. When she leaves, it’s followed by an electric solo by him, his body seeming to scream with the pain inside.
It ends with the whole cast gathered on and around the couch watching the divine Tamisha A. Guy and Claude (CJ) Johnson dance romantically. I, and I suspect most in the King’s Theatre audience sighed very happily indeed.
An Untitled Love is at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (as part of the Edinburgh International Festival) to August 21, 2022. Visit www.eif.co.uk for tickets.